Garbage: A Costly American Addiction

This is a guest post written by Edward Humes, author of the new book Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash.

The head of a plastic bag industry group, whose full-time job consists of battling local bans on disposable grocery sacks, made a provocative observation the other day about trash: Don't be so quick to reject waste, he warned.

"Zero waste would mean a zero economy."

Equating green with economic ruin is a familiar refrain, of course, but this claim about waste is worth a hard look. Trash really is the biggest thing Americans make, and it tends to get bigger in good times while shrinking during recession. Does that mean, as counter-intuitive as it sounds, that garbage is good? Should the old saw about waste not, want not really be waste more, get more? Should Americans just chill out and revel in the fact that we are the most wasteful people on the planet, rolling to the curb 7.1 pounds of trash a day for every man, woman and child -- a personal lifetime legacy of 102 tons of garbage each? Doesn't this simply show that we're buying lots of stuff and living large?